Mexico Power Struggles Intensify as Fox Fades into History

By Kent Paterson

For Vicente Fox, the game is almost up. With only a little more
than two years remaining in his term and with no sign of the "Great
Change" he once promised anywhere in sight, Mexico's first opposition
president is likely to go down in history as the "Great Frustrator."
A bitter nail was hammered into his political coffin this summer when
Fox's personal secretary and spokesman Alfonso Durazo resigned and
charged the president with undermining democracy by promoting the
2006 presidential candidacy of Fox's wife, Martha Sahagun. Durazo
accused Fox of resorting to the discredited practice of previous
presidents who regularly named their successor before leaving
office.

In characteristic Fox fashion, the president responded to Durazo's
resignation by quipping that "Jesus Christ had his Judas too."
Enjoying unprecedented power for a Mexican first lady, Sahagun was
then forced to stride before the television cameras and declare that
she will not seek the presidency in 2006.

The "Martita" flap was one manifestation of an intensifying power
scramble as the nation's political actors leave aside mundane matters
of state like enacting long overdue reforms and focus their energies
on who will succeed Fox. In this vein, local and state elections
leading up to the federal race assume symbolic and practical meaning.
Lately, the results have been disastrous for Fox's center-right PAN
party.

In four state elections this summer, the PAN conceded Durango,
Chihuahua and Oaxaca states to the old governing PRI party while
losing to the center-left PRD in Zacatecas. In local elections, PAN
governments were even ejected from their longtime border strongholds
of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. Only in Aguascalientes, where PAN
candidate Luis Armando Reynoso cultivated an enthusiastic following
partly because of his role in building a new soccer stadium, did the
president's party win a governorship. Hardly a mandate for the
right.

Anti-PAN factions, not the least the PRI, are thrilled by the
election results. But their glee should be tempered by the dawning
realization that a majority of potential Mexican voters view politics
and politicians with disgust. Abstentionism in this year's races
conformed to a trend in which more than 50% of potential voters
simply stay home. Allegations of vote-buying, computer-aided ballot
tampering and campaign finance irregularities continue to stain
elections, helping fuel the cynicism. Voter alienation is likewise
explained in part by the contrast between the cushy lifestyles of
Mexican politicians and government officials and the working public.
Aguascalientes maintenance worker Irma Villanueva might be
typical.

The young, single mother must support an 8-year-old handicapped
son on a salary of about $60 US dollars a week. To survive,
Villanueva scrambles between government and private aid agencies
seeking extra help for her son. "During the campaigns, (politicians)
want to help," muses Villanueva," but afterwards they don't."

While Villanueva struggles to make ends meet, the head of the
virtually bankrupt Mexican Social Security Institute takes in about
$20,000 per month and the director of the financially challenged
Mexican Educational Radio Institute draws a cool $13,500 per month.
Federal deputies and senators earn more than $10,000 monthly, while
local politicians sometimes give themselves $10,000 Christmas
bonuses. According to El Universal newspaper, Fox and his first lady
spent about $87,000 in public money on their wardrobes between 2001
and 2003, or about the equivalent of Villanueva's salary at current
payments stretched out over a 28-year period.

PRD Troubles

Formed by PRI dissidents and leftists in 1989, the Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD) was viewed by many sectors as the force
that would clean up government corruption, retain the social gains of
the Mexican Revolution and promote greater democracy. Today the ray
of the "Party of the Aztec Sun" is wavering Although the PRD is
credited with instituting popular public works and social programs in
where it governs locally, the party is burdened in debt and tarnished
by scandal. Charges of nepotism, corruption and opportunism swirl
around the PRD. Former PRD Senator Felix Salgado, who describes
himself as a die-hard party militant, warns his political institute
is in danger of "extinction" if it doesn't rectify itself. Salgado
scores the PRD for drifting away from the issues of the social
movements it once purported to represent.

Perhaps most damaging for the PRD has been its association with
the so-called "videoscandals" aired on Mexican television earlier
this year. The secretly-taped videos showed phantom businessmen
Carlos Ahumada, an Argentinian-born millionaire who mysteriously rose
from rags to riches, making payments to individuals connected to the
PRD. Although members of his administration were implicated in the
scandal, PRD Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico City was
spared direct involvement. But the popular mayor, who is widely
considered the leading presidential contender for 2006, has other
headaches. His neo-populist policies clash with many of the pro
big-business policies pursued by the Foxistas, and now Lopez Obrador
confronts a legal defrocking that would strip him of his immunity as
a government official in order to face charges filed by the federal
Attorney General of the Republic related to the expropriation of a
private lot in Mexico City. A trial would bar Lopez Obrador from
participating in the 2006 contest.

Lopez Obrador's supporters are not taking the legal challenge
sitting down. Across the country, yellow-shirted AMLO brigadistas are
fanning out with their message and mobilizing demonstrations on
behalf of the beleaguered mayor. Backer Carlos Mendoza calls it a
"ceaseless protest."

If current trends hold, Fox seems destined to lurch from one
political crisis to another. Challenged by a PRI that is up in arms
over the indictment of their former President Luis Echeverria for
orchestrating a 1971 student massacre, Fox must also face angry union
members who are organizing protests to save social security for
government workers. Fox has not solved the Chiapas crisis in "15
minutes" as he once promised, nor has he made any significant
progress on issues like crime. With Fox increasingly out of the
picture, it remains to be seen if a divided PRI can stage a comeback,
or whether other forces will rally to fill the big, empty boots of
the man once praised by the US press as the breathing symbol of
Mexico's great democratic transition. Meanwhile, many Mexicans like
Irma Villanueva say they are waiting to for their nation's leaders to
actually do something for the people.

Kent Paterson is a freelance journalist and author who
frequently covers Mexico.